Abstract

Creative industries is becoming increasingly important topic in Japan in recent years. The focus is no longer exclusively on productivity but has shifted to nurturing creativity and culture and becoming a branded cool nation. In this lecture I would like to talk about opportunities challenges that this shift involve but particularly what I see as fundamental contradictions in Japanese creative industries discourse.

Speaker Biography

Dr Shinji Oyama is Lecturer in the Department of Film, Media and Culture Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. He has published and spoken internationally on brand and branding, media globalization and Japanese creative industries. He is a former account planner for a global advertising agency in Tokyo and a founder of couple of Internet start-ups in New York and Tokyo.